Sound Credit Union,and The Rest Of The Banking Industry ,Charged me courtesy pay fees because funds were "on hold" to clear the transactions? Auburn Washington

I work at a financial institution, not this one but I will try to explain what may have happened. When you make a purchase with plastic, like a debit card, the merchant either is online and takes the money immediately OR they will get an authorization and the funds are placed on hold.

What is suppose to happen is when the actual charged comes through and posts the hold will drop off, or the hold expires if the actual charge is not done. If your charge posts and the hold is still on your account the bank should be able to figure that out and reverse your fees. This will happen and though it is no fault of the banks, or yours it is our responsibility to do that.

This can happen when: you go to let's say Costco to buy gas, they will put a hold on your account (before you pump) for $100.00. You only purchase $30.00 in gas. The $100.00 is on hold even though you only spent $30.00. In the meantime you spent more funds overdrawing your account, but not really, just on paper as that $100.00 is not valid. Normally when the charge comes through the hold drops off, BUT most systems look for a dollar amount so there is no match and the hold may have not expired yet. Gas stations do cause the majority of problems like this, just because they set their system to hold a set amount, often $75.00 to $100.00. There are some cooperative gas stations out there that only hold $1.00 to verify the account is open. However, they are taking a risk as if they get approval for $1.00 and you charge $60.00 and when that $60.00 hits your account and you don't have it they could take the loss. They do it to protect themselves as they do not know ahead of time how much you may charge.

It only takes one of these incidents to s****.> I find that when records are not kept and the charges take a few days to post that consumers go off of their on-line balance which can be wrong as it is just like having an outstanding check. hope this helps!